Down to Montreal, then, came Colin Robertson, full of fight as an Irishman of Tipperary. “The effusions of the Nor’Westers might have staggered my resolution to come to Montreal,” he writes in his letters of 1817 to officers of the Hudson’s Bay Company. “‘Robertson go to Montreal! No! He may find his way to the States if we don’t catch him!’ Such was the language held forth at Sault Ste. Marie, Lake Superior, which had no other effect on me than calling forth a little caution.... I was at the Sault when a fur trader made his appearance in a light canoe on his way from Red River to Montreal. With him, I embarked and arrived at the Lake of the Two Mountains on the 11th of August, 1817.... As soon as the fur trader pushed off, I requested a Frenchman to furnish me with a small Indian canoe and two faithful Iroquois ... I embarked at midnight ... and crossed the lake about an hour after sunrise.... M. de Lotbiniere ... furnished me with a calash at eleven that night.... I entered Montreal at five in the morning and drove to Dr. Monroe’s, the least suspicious place, his profession making early calls frequent. I was at once recognized by the doctor, who informed me that a partner of the North-West Company had apartments in the upper part of the house. I immediately muffled myself in my cloak and so entered.... As soon as I had breakfast, I made my appearance in the streets of Montreal, where I was stared at by friends of the Nor’Westers as if I were a ghost ... and my appearance gathered such a crowd, I was obliged to disappear inside a boarding house....” “The residences of the Nor’Westers in London and Montreal are splendid establishments, the resorts of the first in society, the benefit from this ostentatious display of wealth being the friendship of legal authorities.... Even the prisons of Montreal are become places of public entertainment from the circumstance of yet holding some partners of the North-West Company.... Every other night, a ball or supper is given; and the Highland bagpipes utter the sound of martial music as if to deafen public censure. The most glaring instance of the Nor’Westers’ contempt for law is their attempt to attract public notice by illuminating all the prison windows every night. Strangers will naturally ask: ‘for what crimes are these gentlemen committed? For debt?’ No ... for murder ... arson ... robbery.... Our old friend, Mr. Astor, is here.... He is frequently in the society of the Nor’Westers ... and feels very sore toward them about Astoria.”